


Bittersweet

by Olos



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Description of Sex, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Narration (there's no dialog folks), Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Written late at night, blink and miss though, blink and u'll miss though, i have edited for projection and Trans Rights purposes, mature just to be safe tbh, the smut's all prose really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 20:26:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18763597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olos/pseuds/Olos
Summary: Boromir narrates his final weeks in Arda, a bittersweet tale of almost love.





	Bittersweet

Aragorn and I had been cuddling regularly for a few days when I caught a fever. In fact, that very first night in the heart of Lothlórien, when he was yet coming out of his grief stained anger and numbness, was the first night I held him, properly, through the night. I am ashamed to admit, when I woke up that first bright, cool morning, and I saw my shirt damp slightly under his face, I did nothing but pull him closer and let him be.

So, of course, a few days later, when I was starting to get settled, it felt quite natural to wake up, curled in a warm ball, with Aragorn tight around me, nose pressed to the back of my neck and arm wrapped around my belly.

Pippin had woke us, telling us that breakfast was ready, but I groaned, feeling distinctly lazy, and thus no matter how hard the poor hobbit tried to rouse us, he could only garner tepid support from Aragorn.

Eventually, Legolas, taking pity on Pippin, swooped in with some breakfast, some snark for Aragorn and I, and told Pippin to let us eat by ourselves if we so wished.

And when Aragorn sat up with me to eat, I felt first symptom: weakness. My head felt light, and when I reached for a slice of bread my hand shook slightly and it seemed to take an age for my arm to find its way to my mouth.

Aragorn, ever the mother-hen, told me to eat faster or I’d be there all day, but try I might, I couldn’t. After a while, I felt a berry poke at my lips. He was holding a berry to me, a silent plea for me to eat. Dutifully, I gently ate the berry from his fingertips, accidentally sucking on them a little in the process. I’m not sure why it took this long to realize I enjoyed that thoroughly.

A few more fruits, or pieces thereof, borne up in his fingers, his clever fingers, ended up in my mouth and down my throat. Suddenly feeling guilty that he, my lord, was hand-feeding me with no return, I summoned my strength and started feeding him too, and thus we were for a while, perhaps the better part of an our, feeding each other as if we were each other’s baby birds.

When we were done, and the plates pushed a few feet away, I, by some instinct, curled into him, nose curling into the side of my neck, legs draped over his lap. By some miracle, he let me stay, until he reached down to pat my shoulder and, upon touching the bare skin there, gasped.

Sleepily, I pulled back, well-dug-in panic instincts kicking in until he explained what was wrong: I felt too warm. Therefore, he decreed, I ought to remove my shirt so he could determine if I might be running a fever.

Upon doing so, and sitting there, bleary-eyed and bow-headed, he lay gentle hands on me, on my forehead, my cheek, the sides of my neck, my collar bone, my chest, my upper belly. At some point, I started shivering, and whether it was the fever or his touch I don’t think I’ll ever know.

When my shivering progressed into mild shakes, Aragorn got well and truly concerned. He deemed it was high time I see the nearest healer, one not too far from the flat stretch of plush grass where we were camping out, one where we had taken Pippin not too long ago for a headache.

When I tried to stand, my shakes increased, and I felt my legs threaten to give out as I took a tentative step. When I took my next step, I felt something sweep me off my feet, and quite suddenly I felt myself cradled in Aragorn’s arms. I curled into him again, passing my arm around his shoulders and hiding my eyes from the bright sun in the juncture between his neck and shoulder, deliciously bare and cool for me. 

He carried most of the way there, only, with a regret stained voice, letting me down to take the last few steps and through the narrow doorway on slow, uncertain foot. When I got inside, Aragorn patiently behind me, I passed a hand over my brow and found sweat there. Aragorn swept his way inside and asked the healer to see me to a bed and to make sure I would be alright.

I was seen to a bed, and helped to lie down. Almost immediately, I closed my eyes. Then, I felt some shape descend on me, hair brush my cheeks and a kiss, gentle, brush my forehead, and then a voice, softly, so convincing, hushing me, tzz tzz, tzz tzz, like how my mother used to. After that, I fell asleep.

At some point, I woke up, to see Aragorn staring absently into a corner, sitting in a chair near my head. When he saw me stir, he looked, surprised, to me, and then smiled. I smiled back, and tried to sit up. Immediately, his arms were there, supporting me, and thus I found my now familiar position burrowing into the side of his neck, and there we sat, curled together for long moments.

After what felt like an eternity, I felt one hand of his leave my back and settle on my forehead. He shifted in his seat and told me I really ought to have something for my fever. I felt his hold on me loosen, and so I pulled from his neck but paused with hitched breath as my cheek brushed his.

We froze there, until I summoned the gall to make eye contact with him. His grey eyes, clear in the Lothlórien light, were steady, unafraid, and so I leant back from him a little further, then leant back in, and kissed him clumsily.

He took a second to process my deed, and ultimately after a brief return he pulled from me and softly said he was not angry but that he really ought to fetch the healer.

A few minutes lingered and I started to get anxious that Aragorn had fled through some back exit when he and the healer came back. The healer bent over his workstation, on the opposite wall, and began fussing with herbs before getting a kettle boiling over the fire in the corner. All the while, Aragorn and the healer were talking, and quite suddenly, I heard Aragorn casually admit he was betrothed. I burst into tears and stuttered apologies. Aragorn, worried, swept over to me and tried to reassure me, but settled for coaxing the tea down me when the poor healer finished with it.

The tea, or brew, when done, smelled sweet and light, and smelling it was a comfort to my anxious heart.

Aragorn and I, after I finished the tea, talked about the kiss, and ultimately I admitted that his kiss was a comfort to me, and he assured me that of course he would kiss me if it was comforting, why wouldn’t he?

After that, our kisses grew more skilled and our excuses for ignoring Aragorn’s betrothal more and more weak, until by just passed the halfway mark of our stay, we ignored it completely.

After that, I had the happiest weeks of my short life, full of love from not only Aragorn but from the rest of the Company in their friendship, and we all recovered from grief well enough.

Aragorn and I were more and more frequently alone as time wore on, and those alone times turned to cuddles to kisses to touches twice and sex once.

I can recount, in splendid detail, my first and only proper sexual encounter-nothing else counts, the rest being thrust upon me and all. I won’t tell most of it here though. But some I will, if only to send my words out to the world.

I remember it was fast, but gentle, secluded behind some bushes in a corner we alone went to. How I wound up on top, and how I saw him, grey eyes bright and nervous but excited and needing, his black hair mussed and spread around him as a halo, the scratch of his stubble as I kissed his temple, his cheek, his jaw, his throat, his voice in my opposite ear, wordlessly urging me onward, a stimulant to both body and heart. How, as we began to rock together, I noticed the warmth of him, his beauty, eternal and yet so fragile seeming in the afternoon light, the warning whisper right before I finished my run to make sure we did not risk a child, and how I decided to put my tongue to a better use to finish his run.

We fell asleep, entangled in each other, almost as soon as we had caught our breaths.

The day we left, the day after Aragorn and I lay together, he made promises, that I could be King-Protector to him and his wife, that we would be married as well, that I could rule at his side, his equal, and at the time, I ate it up gratefully.

Two days later though, I started to doubt him. Whether it was a stealthy attack on me by the ring, some boon of the air of Lothlórien wearing off, or something else entirely, I began to wonder if he really meant those promises. Those doubts turned to guilt that I had lain with a betrothed man, and that maybe my father’s taunts had been right all along.

So, I approached Aragorn, and we took watch together. I brought up my concerns guilt first, and to my sudden horror he was starting to agree with me, that maybe it was for the best we call off our relationship before things get complicated, but that he couldn’t leave me, he daren’t, he needed me and didn’t I know that he- -

I told him to just end it, break us apart, and a fight developed that ended in slaps being exchanged and I being ordered to bed. 

Yes, my lord, I responded, hoping he took the tremble in my voice for anger, and not panic, regret, sadness, grief- -

Almost as soon as his hand hit me I felt panic rise in me, and suddenly I was as afraid as if my father had thrown his first blow of one of his punishments.

After he sent me to bed, I lay, shaking, panicking, terrified I would be hit further, consumed with guilt and self-loathing and tears and so I sucked and bit on my left arm until marks were left and my teeth bloody so Aragorn wouldn’t hear me cry. 

After that, it was a downward spiral. I cried myself to sleep every night, my arm growing ever more bitten and bloody from desperate attempts to muffle my cries. I began to fear that Aragorn hated me, that he had never actually felt anything for me at all, and that fear consumed me until what I felt for him was vanished into its smoke. The ring, seeing opportunity, came at me hard, constantly barraging me with coaxes and hatred and jibes and curses, until I did anything, even cut my same bloody arm, to make it silent for five minutes.

Of course, I ended up too obedient to it. I could not ignore its demands to seek Frodo, and thus I am guilty of a terrible assault.

When I found Frodo, of course, I hoped I would remain in control, but in my weakness I could not, and slowly the ring took more and more control of my body and voice until I was cast from my body entirely for a moment, watching as a spirit, horrified, unwilling, as I assaulted Frodo. About as soon as the hobbit threw me off him, the ring relinquished its hold on me, and back I was in my body, crying, yelling, grief torn.

Seeing that Frodo was likely to never trust me or go near me again, I opted to go declare my guilt to Aragorn and plead for punishment, my mind helpfully supplying hitting-beating-whipping-cursing-humiliation-ra--

I ran down the hill sobbing, not realizing until I reached the bottom that the curses and insults I heard in my mind that were directed at me were coming from myself.

Of course, it was then I found the camp empty, and for a moment I stood, terrified, shaking. Then, Pippin screamed. Then Merry.

I forced and blinked the tears from my eyes, and driving myself on with the whip of self-loathing I ran to aid the two hobbits.

I threw myself into the fray, but ultimately, I achieved nothing besides my punishment: arrows to my shoulder, hip, and chest.

When I had taken the last arrow I could not get up again. I watched as the hobbits be dragged off and wished the archer who had shot me could shoot me again so I lost no more honor.

Of course, pulled in by the cry of my now broken horn, Aragorn sprinted up, and by the sounds he had slew the archer. By then, I was collapsed entirely, on my back and almost unable to move.

Aragorn tried to comfort me, in my final moments, but it wasn’t enough. As I felt the tug of finality begin to pull on me, I bid my shaking goodbye, hoping that with my pledge of submission and loyalty Aragorn might just be moved to forgive my mortal sins.

As his goodbye, as the darkness claimed me, he kissed my forehead, and whispered something to my hair. To this day, I irrationally hope it was ‘I love you.’

Of course, I’ll never know if it was. I won’t know if he loved me or if his comfort for me was moved by pity for a broken body and a breaking soul. Somehow, I wish he hated me if only so he didn’t grieve me. I’ll never know though. I’m stuck here, in a new world, a new body, wishing somehow despite it all, I could go back home.

-Boromir.


End file.
